GE Debuts Vscan, the 'Stethoscope of the 21st Century'
medical posts
Med Students Tweeting and Blogging Patient Details
Medical students learn a lot of things at school, but apparently, discretion may not be one of them. Fox News reports that a number of recently surveyed medical school deans said they know of students posting "unprofessional content" on sites like Facebook, Youtube and even personal blogs.
Whether intentional or not, this content ranges from alarming examples (identifying patient details on Facebook) to more minor ones (use of profanity). The survey's leader, Dr. Katherine Chretien of the Washington, D.C., VA Medical Center, told Fox News that the real problem is that most medical schools lack guidelines on what's acceptable for students to post online. According to the survey, 47 of the 78 participating deans were aware of such conduct, but only 38-percent of participating schools have a set of guidelines in place.
Holograms That Respond to 'Touch'
While the technology is still in its early stages, scientists hope to eventually use it for practical purposes. (Holographic controls on hospital machines, for instance, could replace easily contaminated physical controls.) So don't get too excited, geeks. This scientific development exists for the common good, not for you to act out those Princess Leia fantasies. [From: Reuters]
Nightmare-Causing Bloodbot Automates Bloodletting
Medical robots are nothing new to us here at the Switched offices. We've covered them before. But those robots haven't terrified us nearly as much as this, the Bloodbot.
The bot's form is a simple mechanical arm, equipped with a probe and needle. The probe feels around your arm for flesh that is relatively firm, betraying the presence of a vein. The Bloodbot then sticks you with the needle, waits for the subtle pop indicating a punctured vein, and then ceases its advance before it ruptures your vein (or, worse, your artery on the other side).
Brain Injury Researchers Watch YouTube Videos for Trauma Research
YouTube's vast repository of videos offers video of just about anything imaginable -- from rare concert footage to gadget reviews. But, according to a report from the University of Kentucky posted on LabSpaces, brain injury researchers are using the site for something more noble: head trauma research. Best of all, they've actually made some concrete findings that could help coaches make safer decisions for their injured players.
The findings revolve around what Jonathon Lifshitz, assistant professor at the University of Kentucky Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Center, calls the "fencing response." After watching hundreds of hours of YouTube videos showcasing various head impacts, Lifshitz and his team noticed that, after a player suffered a severe blow to the head, his forearm would involuntary assume an "en garde" fencing position -- sometimes before he even hit the ground. (One of the videos watched is shown above.) Believe it or not, this behavior was noticed in rats as well.
Such a physical response indicates trauma to a part of the brainstem that controls balance. If left untreated, such an injury can lead to permanent brain damage and death. Internal damage is hard to assess by simply looking at a person, so if a player displays the fencing response after an impact, a coach should have her treated immediately instead of sending her back onto the field. Score one for YouTube! [From: U.K./LabSpaces]
'Rorschach' Wikipedia Entry Angers Some Psychologists
According to the New York Times, the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Saskatchewan is now investigating Heilman because of complaints from two psychologists who claim that his actions represent "serious misconduct" and "disrespect." Heilman likened the investigation to "intimidation tactics," adding that the complaining parties are "trying to close the doors on scientific discourse."
'Teen Texting Tendonitis' the Latest Health Epidemic
Teens text way too much. We've gotten so used to outrageous stories here at Switched HQ that we were dismissive when we heard about 13-year-old Bailey Baker from Dallas, TX and her 8,000 monthly text messages -- after all, we've seen a different young girl send 41,000 messages in a month, and even one who claimed to send 300,000. So, 8,000? That's nothing.
That is until we learned that Bailey is suffering from what some have dubbed Teen Texting Tendonitis (or TTT), a fancy, unnecessary name for sore thumbs. As we've previously reported, your thumbs are not designed for tapping out messages on tiny keyboards. So it should come as no surprise that Bailey found herself suffering from back, neck, elbow, and thumb pain, as well as occasional numbness in her opposable fifth digit.
So now parents have one more reason to freak out about their child's texting habit: the medical bills. [From: CNN, via Examiner.com]
California Non-Profit Sells Weed via Twitter
The medical marijuana delivery service, which is the brainchild of Artists Collective founder Dann Halem, aims to provide shut-ins with weed while using the profits to establish artists' grants, according to ABC News. The project, which began about 18 months ago, offers assorted strains (from Blackberry Kush to Baby Crunch) and a bounty of pot-infused baked goods via the organization's Twitter page. The best part is that the service is free, although drivers do appreciate tips.
While this creative effort is legal under California law, it's still in violation of Federal law. If the Feds stay away, though, similar services could spring up in the twelve other states that have legalized medical marijuana. After all, prescription drugs are already delivered to the front door. Now, if the Artists Collective would only deliver pizza, too... [From: ABC News]
Chewing Robot Takes Bite Out of Denture Trouble-Shooting
Teen Diagnoses Self in Science Class
Paging Dr. House. The stomach pain, vomiting, and fever that Sammamish, Washington teen Jessica Terry had endured for the past eight years stupefied doctors, forcing the high school senior to regularly miss class. Then, last January, Jessica borrowed one of her intestinal slides from her pathologist, took it to her A.P. Biomedical Problems class, and looked at it under a microscope. The problem, to her eyes, was clear.According to Seattle's KOMO News, Jessica spotted in her intestinal tissue what she believed to be a granuloma -- a cell with a dark center that indicates Crohn's disease. After consulting with her teacher, fact-checking online, and then e-mailing the slide to another pathologist, Jessica had confirmation, a mere 24 hours later, that her intuition had been correct. She'd been afflicted those eight long years by Crohn's disease -- an autoimmune disorder that attacks digestive cells.
Even though Crohn's gets progressively more difficult to manage as the sufferer ages, Jessica is relieved to know what she has. She starts nursing school in the Fall, and has just finished penning a children's book on living with Crohn's. If she's half as intuitive a writer as she is a scientist, it'll be a best seller. [From: CNN.com, via KomoNews.com]
Heart Beats Outside Body With Help of Machine
Featuring a setup made of pipes and rods running in and out of a still-beating heart, a lab at North Carolina State University (NCSU) could be mistaken for that of a mad scientist. Researchers there have recently created a computer-controlled machine that can keep a heart beating outside the body, according to NCSU's Web site.
Researchers said they plan to use the machine (designed by NCSU mechanical engineering students) in conjunction with internal cameras so that they might be able to determine the best way to repair heart valves. Don't worry; researchers aren't using human hearts just yet. A local pork processing facility donates pig hearts for the betterment of medicine and science.
We hope this engineering marvel will help lead to some truly amazing medical breakthroughs. That said, we can't help feeling a little odd while watching the video. After all, the closest we have come to seeing a heart beat outside a body was when we watched 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.' [From: NCSU, via Neatorama]
Doctors and Med Students Embrace Smartphones
Even though smartphones have been around for years, the exploding application scene (started by Apple's App Store) has transformed what was typically a business communication device into much, much more. Despite the surge in mobile entertainment apps, it's not all games: According to the Washington Post, roughly 64-percent of doctors in the U.S. use a smartphone, and many are using devices like the iPhone to look up drug interactions, view X-rays, and even stream music during a surgery. Med school students are also getting in on the action, with Georgetown's medical school requiring students to own either an iPhone or iPod Touch (sound familiar?). Similarly, Ohio State University has promised to give each and every one of its 1,400 students an iPod Touch by this Fall. Catherine Lucey, Vice Dean for Education at OSU told the Washington Post, "It allows the residents and the students to ask questions at the bedside, and not rely on memory and not guess. They can actually sit with the patient if they wish and use a number of online sources."
There's pretty much an infinite number of uses a device like the iPhone could offer the medical field. With over 25 pages of medical-related apps on the App Store alone -- and the ability to link specialized hardware to the yet-to-be-released iPhone 3.0 -- you have to wonder if Apple had this planned all along. [From: The Washington Post]
MIT Researchers Show Off Wearable Blood Pressure Monitor
SimMan 3G Patient Simulator Will Undoubtedly Creep You Out
European Parkinson's Patients Receive Implants to Help Alleviate Symptoms
St. Jude Medical's announced that patients from Austria, Germany, and Greece are among the first to be implanted with Libra Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) devices to alleviate the symptoms of advanced Parkinson's Disease. Specifically, it's able to reduce akinesia, rigidity, tremor, and motor complications associated with taking levodopa.The company's touting Libra and LibraXP as having the longest-lasting battery of any DBS in their class, meaning potentially less surgical procedures needed for for when they gotta be replaced. No word on when they'll be expanding use of the device, but we're sure it's coming.[Via Medgadget]
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